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Fully healthy defencemen ranking of all playoff teams

Just a comment and opinion.
You can have the best defensemen' in the NHL on your team and still not be a good defensive team or a team that is good defensively. You can even have a real solid defense lineup and struggle because team defense includes the forwards and starts at the other end of the ice. Some of the highly skilled offensive teams will eat you alive if they are allowed to freewheel out of their own end and through the neutral zone. It won't matter who is back there if that happens. It's great to have elite D men but they need support. And that's not even mentioning the guy between the pipes
 
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pictman said:
Just a comment and opinion.
You can have the best defensemen' in the NHL on your team and still not be a good defensive team or a team that is good defensively. You can even have a real solid defense lineup and struggle because team defense includes the forwards and starts at the other end of the ice. Some of the highly skilled offensive teams will eat you alive if they are allowed to freewheel out of their own end and through the neutral zone. It won't matter who is back there if that happens. It's great to have elite D men but they need support. And that's not even mentioning the guy between the pipes
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You're right. Nashville had the better defencemen in 2017, but the Blues in 2019 were the better defensive team.
 
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LeafsNation149 said:
OP stated FULLY HEALTHY.

Oilers with Ekholm
Stars with Heiskanen
Devils with Hamilton

Are all easily better AINEC than Habs.

I'll give you Blues but that is debatable.
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I understood it as healthy for the playoffs lineup.
I still would take our D-squad ahead of St. Louis, and potentially Edmonton as well. Hutson is that big of a difference maker.

Also our bad defensive numbers are inflated by the incompetent forwards.
 
JKG33 said:
Colorado
Vegas
Florida
Tampa Bay
Carolina
Washington
New Jersey
Los Angeles
Winnipeg
Toronto
Ottawa
St. Louis
Minnesota
Montreal
Edmonton
Dallas
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I don't care how bad Dumba and Ceci are, Dallas having a top-5 DMan and now Harley (borderline top-15 ish) means they are not anywhere near last lmao.
 
oconnor9sean said:
I don't care how bad Dumba and Ceci are, Dallas having a top-5 DMan and now Harley (borderline top-15 ish) means they are not anywhere near last lmao.
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Maybe I should've bumped them up a few spots, but after H&H its basically Lundell (a #4) and a bunch of bottom pair guys. Thats brutal depth
 
IWantSakicAsMyGM said:
xGA eliminates the goalies, but not the forwards, which makes it less than useful for a comparison about just the defensemen. Does having a Selke winning 1C on the roster, like LA or Florida, really mean the defense is better?
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If you'd like to separate forwards from defensemen and rank them based solely on defensive play in any meaningful way have at it :laugh:.

xGA is at least better than "vibes"
 
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MardyBum said:
If you'd like to separate forwards from defensemen and rank them based solely on defensive play in any meaningful way have at it :laugh:.

xGA is at least better than "vibes"
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Is it actually better for this comparison? Philly is the 3rd "best" team in your screenshot. Do they have the 3rd best defensive group in the NHL? Or have they given up the 5th most goals in the NHL this year?
 
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IWantSakicAsMyGM said:
Is it actually better for this comparison? Philly is the 3rd "best" team in your screenshot. Do they have the 3rd best defensive group in the NHL? Or have they given up the 5th most goals in the NHL this year?
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Their goaltending is ass. Literally two of the worst goalies in the league and their other goalie is awful too.

Again, it's not a definitive ranking, but if we're talking about the actual defensive ability of a dcore it's better than "I know this guys name but nothing else about how he's played this year" ranking that usually goes on here.
 
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I can't shake the feeling that the Leafs will activate Hakanpaa at some point in the playoffs. If he's anything like he was in Dallas on a 3rd pair, the Leafs might have a great blend of size and meatheads needed for playoff rule bending lol.

McCabe-Tanev
Rielly-Carlo
OEL-Hakanpaa

McCabe, OEL and Hakanpaa all have a nasty side.

Tanev and Carlo bring that stabilizing Defence.

Biggest issue though is that they don't have a legit stud back there.
 
Devs should be in the middle somewhere. Top 3 is crazy. Sure, they have great depth when healthy with no real bottom pairing guys (or #6s at least)...........but they also lack an elite top pairing guy.
 
MardyBum said:
Their goaltending is ass. Literally two of the worst goalies in the league and their other goalie is awful too.

Again, it's not a definitive ranking, but if we're talking about the actual defensive ability of a dcore it's better than "I know this guys name but nothing else about how he's played this year" ranking that usually goes on here.
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If we're talking about the actual defensive ability of a dcore, using a number that's based on where the entire team gives up shots from seems like a weird choice to me. Obviously, the defensemen are contributing something to that number, but is it the same percentage for each team?

And, what about the offensive contributions of the defensemen? Is the only value in the expected goals he helps suppress?
 
IWantSakicAsMyGM said:
If we're talking about the actual defensive ability of a dcore, using a number that's based on where the entire team gives up shots from seems like a weird choice to me. Obviously, the defensemen are contributing something to that number, but is it the same percentage for each team?

And, what about the offensive contributions of the defensemen? Is the only value in the expected goals he helps suppress?
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Surprisingly, defenseman play a large part in xGA, like forwards play a large part in xGF. Defenseman in the offensive zone aren't playing defense. They're playing offense.

I already said to you specifically, multiple times, it's not a definitive ranking, it's just one number, so unless you'd like to contribute something I'm not sure why you keep replying to me. I'm not doing your homework for you :laugh:
 
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MardyBum said:
Surprisingly, defenseman play a large part in xGA, like forwards play a large part in xGF. Defenseman in the offensive zone aren't playing defense. They're playing offense.

I already said to you specifically, multiple times, it's not a definitive ranking, it's just one number, so unless you'd like to contribute something I'm not sure why you keep replying to me. I'm not doing your homework for you :laugh:
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I agree defensemen play a large part, but it's not the same size part for every team, which makes it an odd choice to be a stat used to compare just defensemen. You chose to bring up xGA/60 as a stat that helps answer the question, so I'm quoting you to ask how/why you think it applies. From what I can tell, it's pretty much useless in this capacity, so I don't think you actually did your homework before bringing it up. Are you just throwing a number out there as something to use, despite it being mostly irrelevant?
 
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Nicko999 said:
I can agree with Habs being the worst team on paper in the playoffs. However this is about D-men and a top 4 of Hutson, Ghule, Matheson, Struble has a nice mix of skill, offense, physicality, speed, shutdown play. Even if the bottom pair is weaker, no way we are 16 out of 16.

Now if we were talking about forwards then we are 16/16 by far.
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IDK the amount Hutson gets abused down low and around his net... Playoffs are going to be rough for him. Right now the Habs do not care about that stuff it is just good vibes. But after a few years, unless he is able to develop the smarts on that side of the puck (and with his size maybe he can never do it) he is going to be a mixed bag and no different than many other dmen who have come and gone who can put up insane numbers but lack elsewhere like Mike Green
 
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IWantSakicAsMyGM said:
I agree defensemen play a large part, but it's not the same size part for every team, which makes it an odd choice to be a stat used to compare just defensemen. You chose to bring up xGA/60 as a stat that helps answer the question, so I'm quoting you to ask how/why you think it applies. From what I can tell, it's pretty much useless in this capacity, so I don't think you actually did your homework before bringing it up. Are you just throwing a number out there as something to use, despite it being mostly irrelevant?
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I've already explained to you why it's more relevant than name recognition, it actually speaks to how a team has played defensively.

So what's relevant? Why don't you actually post something worthwhile instead of just complaining? You've been pretty useless this entire thread.

Goodbye.
 
MardyBum said:
I've already explained to you why it's more relevant than name recognition, it actually speaks to how a team has played defensively.

So what's relevant? Why don't you actually post something worthwhile instead of just complaining? You've been pretty useless this entire thread.

Goodbye.
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How is asking you to explain your post "complaining"? You made the claim that it's better, which I don't agree with, so I'm asking you to actually explain how. This is how conversations where people don't agree is supposed to happen. Or should we all just say whatever we want and never try to understand each other?
 
It’s very obvious judging by some of these ranking that most fans have not heard about Dylan Samberg of the Jets. He is well on his way to becoming a very good #2 Dman.

On top of Morrissey who imo is a top 5 dman league wide, and Demelo and Pionk who can very well hold their own, that once again the Jets are getting severely overlooked.

Ya I know they have Helle, but it also takes a great D to keep your opponents to under 200 GA for the season.
 
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If the Devils were healthy their pairings would look something like
Siegenthaler - Hamilton
Hughes - Pesce
Dillon - Kovacevic
Dumoulin - Casey
Cholowski - Nemec

No idea where they'd rank but that is what they'd look like
 
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